LITTLE SHOP OF HONORS LEGENDS OF THE NEGRO LEAGUES LIVE ON AT A SMALL STORE IN NASHVILLE

Fifty years ago the great pitcher Satchel Paige rented a roomfor the winter in a boardinghouse in south Nashville, and for afew months a young outfielder named Henry Kimbro was hiscompanion. "Satch was a good guy," says Kimbro, now 83. "Hedidn't talk about women. Satch talked about baseball. We used tohang on the corner jivin' just like I do when I come down herenow every day."

"Here" is a kempt little store on Jefferson Street called theOld Negro League Sports Shop, which not only specializes insportswear and merchandise relating to Negro league baseball butalso serves as a social club for former Negro league players."I'm awakening people's memories," says Larry Walker, 44, aformer schoolteacher and data processor who opened the shop twoyears ago, and has since opened another in Memphis.

Walker was named after Larry Doby, the first black man to playin the American League. Before Doby joined the Cleveland Indiansin 1947, he played second and third base for three years withthe Newark Eagles of the Negro National League. From 1920 to1947, when Jackie Robinson took the field with the BrooklynDodgers and started the integration of baseball, the Negroleagues employed hundreds of terrific ballplayers who wereexcluded from the majors. Walker grew up fascinated by thestories he read about such Negro league heroes as Paige, James(Cool Papa) Bell, Oscar Charleston, Leon Day, Ray Dandridge andJosh Gibson. To run a store that enables people to "get to knowthe players," as Walker puts it, "has been [my] lifelong dream."

Most of Walker's merchandise is what he calls "authenticreproductions," among them replica caps and jerseys from suchteams as the Eagles, the Kansas City Monarchs and the BirminghamBlack Barons. Walker also stocks reproductions of postersadvertising games between, say, the Homestead Grays and theAtlanta Black Crackers at Ponce de Leon Park in Atlanta, aswell as autographed balls, team postcards and pennants, baseballcards, and bookmarks emblazoned with photographs of Hall ofFamers Bell, Dandridge and Pop Lloyd, among numerous others.

Also on sale are biographies, histories and encyclopedias that,for instance, list the many different fastballs Paige could showa batter and explain why Day was so difficult to hit. Butanother good way to learn such things is to spend some timelistening to Kimbro, who strolls in most every day sporting redsuspenders, sunglasses and a toothpick. Kimbro playedcenterfield for two Negro league teams, including the BaltimoreElite Giants, on which Day was a teammate. "Good god, that LeonDay was something else," Kimbro says. "Kind of like a turtle.That's why he was so effective. He'd pitch"--Kimbro crouches andtucks in his head--"out of a closed shell."

Kimbro had a reputation for being mean, which he blithelydismisses. "Don't bear it no mind," he says. When Walker remindsKimbro that he did once attempt to whack catcher Gibson, theso-called Black Babe Ruth, in the head with a bat, Kimbro smilesand says, "When you're young and strong, you'll grab anybody.Josh was a fine guy."

No sooner has Kimbro left the shop than Robert Abernathyappears. Paige's former Monarch teammate loves to talk about thewily old righthander. "Satch had so many pitches," Abernathysays. "Three or four curves and three or four fastballs. Hecould throw one that would drop from your head to your ankles."After the 1946 World Series, Abernathy played with Paige in anall-star game against a team of white players in Los Angeles."Satch struck out 18, and he told them what he was gonna throw,"says Abernathy. "I went 2 for 6 that day. We won 11-2."

And here is Jim Zapp, a large man with a sleek Cadillac and afierce handshake, who in 1948 played for a Baron team thatincluded a teenage centerfielder named Willie Mays. "He couldfield, throw and run," says Zapp. "Wasn't much of a hitter yet,but he had one of the sweetest arms. What a treat it was to see."

That's how Clint (Butch) McCord feels about Walker's shop.McCord played for two Negro league teams before becoming aNashville postman. He says the shop helps him remember a job heloved. "We need this," he says. "People need to know aboutblacks like Josh Gibson and Oscar Charleston. Baseball bringspeople together."

Walker agrees. When McCord is out of hearing range, Walker says,"I think this is reopening a part of his life."

Before he became the premier postseason performer of his generation, the Patriots icon was a middling college quarterback who invited skepticism, even scorn, from fans and his coaches. That was all—and that was everything